The Prime Minister has hinted National will campaign on asset sales next year, saying an election win in would be the mandate he needed to push ahead with asset sales next term. Christopher Luxon has ruled out selling off state houses but says he is open to having a wider conversation with voters at the next election and pursuing other asset sales next term.
He told reporters on Tuesday morning an election result would be an acceptable mandate, and he does not see a referendum on the issue being required. Asked if he planned to campaign on it next year, Luxon said "we'd take it to the election and it would be part of our programme that we'd want to talk about and be upfront with New Zealanders about".
Act leader David Seymour put asset sales firmly on the table in his State of the Nation speech on Friday , saying privatisation needs to be talked about more openly and posed whether the healthcare system could be a good starting point. David Seymour giving his state of the nation speech. Newly-minted health minister Simeon Brown said the country had a "publicly funded healthcare model" and that would not change.
Where privatisation could be an option in health, he said, was "areas such as infrastructure in the healthcare system where public private partnerships are something we could be looking more at". Brown, who is also the new state owned enterprises minister, told reporters he was receiving briefings in coming days on the government's full breadth of assets and his focus was "making sure they've got high quality performing boards".
Nicola Willis. She said the work reviewing state owned enterprises was still progressing and nothing had gone to cabinet yet. On whether asset sales will be a feature of next term, Willis said that was an issue for the National Party to discuss ahead of the next election campaign.
